San Marino's constitution, spread between old statutes and the 1974 charter

If you go looking for San Marino’s constitution expecting a signed and dated document, you’re in for a surprise. There isn’t one. The Regency explains on its own website that the constitution isn’t a single text but is spread over several laws that have piled up across the centuries. To me, building a state in layers like that is about as San Marino as it gets.

Does San Marino have a constitution?

Yes, just not the way France or Italy have one, and a British reader will find the idea familiar, since the UK doesn’t keep its constitution in a single document either. Rules of constitutional weight already appear in the earliest local statutes that survive, are amended, extended or confirmed down the centuries and run right up to the Charter of Rights of 8 July 1974, revised by Law 36 of 2002. It’s a system that grew from the days of the medieval commune, which is why it still keeps institutions like the Regency.

For the full backstory, from the legend of AD 301 to the vote of 1906, see my history of San Marino. Here I’m sticking to the texts.

The statutes, from 1295 to the seventeenth century

The earliest statutes we know of date from between 1295 and 1302, and in them the two consuls who ran the community become known as Captain and Defender. The ones that really shaped the country came later. The Consiglio Grande e Generale calls them the statutes «del ’600» and says they were drafted between the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.

Those statutes stripped the Arengo, the assembly of heads of household, of its power without quite abolishing it. They called the Council of Sixty the supreme, absolute and sole prince of the community, gave it the power of life and death, and laid down that 40 councillors should come from the Terra, the Città and the Borgo, and 20 from the Ville, the rest of the territory. From then on the Council renewed itself by co-option, and over time it fell into the hands of a few families.

Is it really from 1600?

That’s what you’ll read in plenty of places, and I can see where it comes from, since the «’600» statutes tend to get pinned to that round number. But the official websites I’ve checked give no exact year, only the span between the two centuries, so I’d rather not treat it as settled.

What is true, and I find more interesting, is that they’re still cited. The Regency’s website notes that the review of the regents at the end of their term, the Sindacato della Reggenza, comes from rubric XIX of Book One of the Statutes. A modern court handles it now, but the rule it rests on is the same.

The 1974 Declaration of Rights

The modern cornerstone is Law 59 of 8 July 1974, the Declaration of Citizens’ Rights and of the Fundamental Principles of San Marino’s legal order. Its original preamble spoke of repudiating fascism and every totalitarian conception of the state, and since 2002 it mentions only every totalitarian conception.

Its content reads much like any European constitution. Sovereignty lies with the people, the state rejects war and recognises the European Convention on Human Rights, everyone is equal before the law, suffrage is universal, secret and direct, and the Republic protects its historic heritage and landscape. The office of head of state is held jointly by two Captains Regent, as the supreme guarantors of the constitutional order.

The 2002 reform created the Collegio Garante della costituzionalità delle norme, with three full members and three substitutes elected by two thirds of the Council, which reviews laws and sits in judgement on outgoing regents. And in 2011 a constitutional law added the article on San Marino’s flag and its coat of arms.

The Arengo, from assembly to citizens’ petition

The Arengo is the country’s oldest institution. It brought the heads of household together outside the Pieve when the bell rang, and records show it meeting at least until 9 January 1571. After the seventeenth-century statutes it didn’t meet again until 25 March 1906, when the Sammarinese decided to elect their Council by vote.

Today it lives on in another form. The 1974 Declaration says the Arengo is to be governed by law, and a law of 1995 turned it into a right of petition. On the first Sunday after each investiture, at midday, any adult citizen of San Marino can present istanze d’Arengo in the council chamber, and the Regency decides by 30 April or 30 October whether they’re of public interest.

What you can see that’s connected

There’s no display case with the constitution in it, but there are the places where it works. Piazza della Libertà is where the regents are proclaimed and where the Palazzo Pubblico in San Marino stands, with the Great and General Council chamber where the Arengo petitions are handed in, closed for works until 31 October 2026. A step away, the basilica occupies the site of the old Pieve where the assembly used to gather.

If the subject grabs you and the palace is still shut, I’d call in at the State Museum, which is on the €11 pass and traces the country’s story through archaeology, art and coins. And if you happen to be there on 1 April or 1 October, you’ll see the most visible part of the whole system out in the square.